


Inconsolable

by roseandtiger



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Justice League of America (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 12:44:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7508776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandtiger/pseuds/roseandtiger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Superman saying "I love you".<br/>Batman takes it like Batman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inconsolable

The words hit like struck metal, he feels the vibrations rattling his teeth. Batman has to bite down hard to keep himself from screaming the obscenities that shake loose behind his throat. The horizon undulates before him and he thinks for a moment it must be the effect of the words, bending time and space with their weight. Below the roof he's standing on, Gotham stretches out spilling into the Harbor.

Superman is silent next to him but for the rustle of his cape when he takes a step forward, taking him closer to the edge. The setting sun has lit him on fire and his eyes burn like embers in glass. He looks in that moment as otherworldly as he actually is. _Damn you, Clark_.

He ought to use those eyes and strike him down, save them both, the most massive fucking idiot. Clark doesn’t of course. He continues to be loud and suffocating even in his silence and Batman goes on hearing his own heartbeat thudding in his ears. He mirrors Superman’s stance, hands low, feet shoulder-width apart like they're bracing for impact, and they stand the reverse of gargoyles, slowly turning to stone as daylight fades around them.

When the wind picks up it lifts Clark’s red cape, blowing it open, and it unfurls in Batman's direction. He is close enough that its edges touch him, and he feels its caress even under the armor, though he knows it is impossible, that it’s only his mind pulling sensation out of nothing. His armor is too thick for anything so soft.

Clark turns to him and the wind is now behind him, the billowing cape pinned back by his powerful shoulders, and Batman thinks of Atlas holding up the world – and then dropping it on the very breakable bones of Bruce Wayne.

“I just wanted you to know” Clark whispers and Batman nods like he understands, like this is all perfectly clear. “I wanted it to be out.”

 _You should have kept it in_ , he thinks wanting to scream, but he crushes the impulse between clenched teeth and stalls, rummaging for better words. He can’t decide and they plop to the ground around him like rotten fruit, like rain, like pearls unstrung. The picture he must make standing on a rooftop with his teeth clenched and his body nearly vibrating out of its skin.  
  
Clark looks worried, must think he's close to having a stroke. For a moment, it looks as if Clark will reach out and touch him, and God, he hopes not because he might shatter with how brittle he feels in this moment.

But then the sun sets completely and all the light leaves Clark’s face. For the first time in perhaps all the time they have known each other, he sees Clark close up like a window, as if someone's cut the pull string and the shutters have come down like a collapsed accordion.

It’s nearly dark and he feels like something’s been ripped from him, passed him by and slipped through with the light.

“Don't have an apoplexy.”

Batman hears the anger under it scraping Clark's invulnerable throat. He wishes he could think quicker, act quicker, but it’s as if his brain is trapped in amber. Time rushes from him like water until he is left with only the squeak of leather as his fists clench and unclench involuntarily, grasping for something that’s no longer there.

In the end, his hands come up to pull back the cowl. It is important that he is bare in this moment. In the maelstrom of his mind he still knows to do this.

“You must know...“ he begins and doesn’t miss the way Clark shudders at the uttering, but he can’t tell if it’s hope or anger or despair, and the words die in his mouth. If he had an invisible third arm he’d be punching himself repeatedly for his stupidity.

Clark is stillness distilled in human form, his eyes boring into Batman’s own, expectant. He feels naked. Something old slithers in his gut, weakness, a familiar snake that flicks its tongue out to sniff the air.

He is seized by a desperate want to stop there and give no more, disappear into the shadows lengthening and growing now all around him. This is why he is nocturnal. He remembers well now why he doesn’t like the light.

But he must try again. “You are my best friend, Clark. Do you understand?” he pleads, holding Clark’s dark eyes. Then, because he owes this to Clark no matter how the words may burn on their way out like vomit, “this is the most important relationship of my life”.

There is something else he means to put into words, but Clark looks like he has been physically struck. The hurt drips off him like blood and Batman can almost smell it, can almost trace it as it pools everywhere. Clark’s eyes fill and overflow.

 _So you do bleed_ , he thinks, and he wants to strike himself for being the one to have done that to this invulnerable being who is, against all reason, _in love with him_.

But all Clark says is “I know,” and then he’s lifting himself off the ground, leaving behind the solid equalizer between them. Clark has always been a creature of the skies in a way that even eagles envied. He hovers for a moment, his head darts down unable to help one last look.

Batman feels his stomach clench. He can't take a breath. _This is the end_ , he thinks, and sees the distance between them stretch, and his vision narrow and darken until Clark, floating above the world is the last light in the growing blackness.

 _Goodbye moon_ , something in him whispers with his mother's voice, and though panic shoots through him like fire in his veins, though he wants to rush forward to catch that infuriating red, he is not fast enough (will never be). Clark has gone, blown away by the wind.

It feels like hours pass before Batman can pull the cowl back on. His face has grown numb from the cold and when his fingers touch it they find no difference between it and the cowl. Masks upon masks, he thinks. There is no end to them.

**Author's Note:**

> I must say that I don't like the rhythm of this at all. I'm not really happy with the way the piece moves in this moment between them, but I needed to get it out or else I'd spend forever tinkering with it and never finishing. So really, posting this is a last ditch effort to save it so I can move forward and write more.
> 
> If you took the time to read this, thank you. Hope you enjoyed it, even a little bit.  
> Feel free to let me know either way.


End file.
